


Just ordinary savages

by LeapAngstily



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Dystopia within a dystopia, Explosions, Fire, M/M, Murder, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 02:14:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17275187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeapAngstily/pseuds/LeapAngstily
Summary: Ale is not sure whether he should be grateful or terrified, considering the boy in front of him just snapped another tribute’s neck in cold blood – but at the same time, hedidsave Ale’s life.





	Just ordinary savages

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lunasenzanotte](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunasenzanotte/gifts).



> Happy New Year, Maria! May the year 2019 treat you kindly, and may your writing motivation and deliciously twisted story ideas never dry up!
> 
> From the moment I saw your letter to Santa, I knew I needed to write this prompt, because it's not like anyone else would be mad enough to go for it, right? As I've told you before, my knowledge of the Hunger Games series is limited at best -- I haven't read the books, and I've only seen the movies once, ages ago -- but I found myself very much enjoying writing this setting. I also do have a whole Monto backstory sitting in the back of my mind, but I'm not promising it'll ever be polished enough to be published.
> 
> I did try to stay true to the original Hunger Games universe to the best of my ability, but there's always a point where you just need to decide that _you know what, it's my story and I can do whatever the hell I want with it_. Basically, this story takes place in one of the numerous Hunger Games not covered in the original series, and all the similarities you might find to the Arenas described in the books and/or movies are coincidental, because I honestly didn't even remember what happened in the movies.
> 
> A huge thanks to Kellin for the quick beta and all the hand-holding and cheerleading on the way! This story probably wouldn't have happened without you, or at least it wouldn't have been half as good.

A quick cracking sound followed by a soft thud as the girl from District 2 drops to ground – dead instantly.

Ale can’t look away, stuck in place, the unseeing grey eyes of the dead girl staring right back at him, accusing. The knife that only moments earlier was pressed against Ale’s neck is laying on the ground, the blood of its previous victim still fresh on the blade.

It registers in Ale’s brain he’s not alone only when his saviour picks up the knife, brushing the blood off against the dead girl’s jacket before attaching it to his own belt. He moves on to collect the rest of the girl’s supplies in swift movements, not paying any mind to Ale.

Ale is not sure whether he should be grateful or terrified, considering the boy in front of him just snapped another tribute’s neck in cold blood – a girl from his own District, no less, Ale recognizes now that his brain is starting to function again – but at the same time, he _did_ save Ale’s life.

Allegri, his mentor, had warned him not to mix with the Careers – _“You can’t trust them, Ale. They were raised to win the Games, they will never do anything for you without an ulterior motive.”_ – and until now, he’s been doing exactly as instructed, lying low, waiting for the Careers to take care of most of the competition.

The only remaining District 2 tribute seems to be finished with the scavenging, and his ice-blue gaze is suddenly fixed on Ale’s tense form. Every cell in Ale’s body is telling him to run, but the more rational side of his mind tells him that’s the quickest way to get himself killed, considering the throwing knives on the boy’s belt and the fucking crossbow hanging off his back.

“You got a shelter? The acid rain’s coming back soon.” How can he sound so _normal_ , even flippant, when the body of his last victim is yet to cool down?

Ale’s silence is the only answer the boy needs. “C’mon then, we wouldn’t want you to melt that pretty face off.”

Ale finds himself following his lead, Allegri’s berating words ringing in his ears all the way to the abandoned fallout shelter that apparently doubles as his saviour’s homestead for this year’s Games.

“Don’t touch anything. Better yet, don’t even move,” the boy instructs as he moves to disable the traps surrounding the perimeter. Ale studies his every movement, so sure and steady, and not for the first time he wonders why he’s not dead yet. “There, now get the fuck in before they see us.”

Ale does as he’s told, just as the first drops of rain start falling on the dying meadows surrounding them. He’d much rather die quickly at the hands of this tribute than melt his face off out in the rain, as his companion so eloquently put it.

 

§§§

 

The night falls and Ale peeks outside as the Fallen of the day are announced one by one. The District 2 girl is the last one on the list, leaving the total tally of the living tributes at seven: all four Careers from Districts 1 and 4, the girl from District 8, Ale, and—

“What’s your name, anyways?” Ale asks before he can stop himself.

They’ve spent the entire evening in uncomfortable silence, his companion clutching his crossbow and staring out of the small hole on the shelter wall, like waiting for someone to come rushing in through the acid rain.

The boy glares at him without a word.

“I’m Ale. Thanks for not killing me, I guess.” The silence is putting Ale on edge, and he can’t imagine the other tribute is faring much better, so he keeps pushing against his better judgement.

“I might still decide to do it.” It’s the flippant tone again; the tribute’s voice is fluid, a soft hum, just a breath away from singing. Somehow, it fills Ale with misplaced sense of security, so he keeps going.

“Like you decided to kill your ally out there?”

The icy blue of the tribute’s eyes looks almost ghastly white in the low lighting, and for a second Ale feels like he is looking right through him, but then the boy trains his eyes back to his small guard hole. “I have no allies.”

“But you trained together with her, didn’t you? With your mentor?”

“There’re no Careers in District 5, is there?” A humourless chuckle that send chills down Ale’s spine. “For us, it’s each person for themselves. What’s the point of forming attachments when you’re gonna end up killing each other anyways?”

To Ale, it sounds a terribly lonely way to live, and for a moment he’s truly grateful he grew up in the relatively peaceful shadows of the power plants in District 5. He doesn’t say it out loud, though.

“So, why her and not me, then?”

“She got in my way,” the boy doesn’t look at Ale again, his voice sounding absent-minded, like light years away from him, “and I needed her supplies. I figured you don’t carry anything worthwhile, considering you were as good as dead had I not shown up.”

Ale hugs his backpack tighter against his chest. He’s not carrying any weapons, which is what the tribute seems to be referring to when he talks about supplies. He does have plenty of food and water, though, courtesy of his generous sponsors.

“You still didn’t tell me your name,” Ale reminds the boy with a crooked smile that feels only half-forced. Against all odds, the more he listens to his companion, the safer he feels. Allegri told him it’s his biggest flaw in the Games: he’s too quick to trust people.

The tribute huffs and adjusts his hold on the bow, peeking outside where the rain is finally letting up, removing the one natural – if you can call artificial rain that – protection they had from an outside attack.

Ale lets out an audible sigh and sits down on the cold concrete floor, opening his bag and pulling out a water bottle.

He drinks sparingly, because he is aware fresh water will become an asset in the long run: all the water sources he has found in the arena so far seem to be poisonous, and he’s fairly sure at least four of the deaths on day one alone happened due to tributes carelessly drinking something they shouldn’t have.

“You want some?” he asks his companion, doing his hardest to sound casual, as he chooses a piece of bread and some dried fish from his supplies.

The boy licks his lips on instinct, and for the first time Ale pays attention to his chapped lips. Ale wonders if he has drunk or eaten anything since the Games began. Maybe his tactics was to kill everyone quickly, just so he wouldn’t starve to death?

It’s day three now. He must be starving.

“Here.” Ale pours some water into a small cup and walks over to his companion with the cup in his outreached hand. “It’s a thanks. For saving my ass out there.”

The boy eyes the cup suspiciously, and Ale has to hold back a laugh when he realizes he probably thinks Ale is trying to poison him. “Sweet mother of— I _just_ drank from that same bottle. See?” He takes a tiny sip from the cup before he holds it out again. “Completely safe. Take it before I change my mind!”

Finally, the boy takes the cup and downs its contents in one swing, proving Ale’s suspicions. Ale made the right call, not offering him the whole bottle.

“Here,” Ale pours more water into the cup, “it’s all I can afford for now. But it’s something, right?”

The boy sips the water more carefully now, savouring the taste. When he hands the cup back to Ale, there’s a ghost of a smile on his thin lips. “It’s Riccardo. My name.”

It’s a surprise, but a pleasant one. Ale can’t hold back a proper smile when he returns to his own corner and hides the water bottle inside his bag again to avoid the temptation of drinking all of it.

 

§§§

 

“Can’t your fucking sponsors send you something _useful_ for once?” Riccardo asks as they stumble up the ladder leading to the roof of an abandoned power plant, the Careers hot on their heels. “Like, a sniper rifle? Something we could use to kill them before they’re at arm’s reach.”

They’d quickly figured out meeting their opponents in close combat was a no-go, as apparently Riccardo’s skillset lies more on the art of sneaking up on people and offing them before they have a chance to defend themselves, while Ale’s skills include staying out of his opponents’ way until they off each other.

“Whose fault is it that we’re out of arrows?” Ale snipes back, reaching the top first and turning around to help Riccardo up after him.

“Might I remind you my shooting just saved your arse out there, _again_!”

The crossbow bolt buried in the District 1 boy’s eye socket is another image Ale is not going to shake anytime soon, even if it took Riccardo all his remaining bolts before he had hit his target. The girl from District 8 is dead too, impaled by a sharpened stake after she set off one of Riccardo’s traps by accident – a commotion that had unfortunately attracted the attention of the remaining Careers.

Riccardo is already on the other side of the building, studying the way down. “I’ve got rope in my bag; we might just reach the topmost window before they make it up here.”

Riccardo works quickly, fastening the one end of the rope on a metal railing circling the roof and then dropping the rest of the bundle down the wall. The rope’s a bit too short, reaching just the top frame of the window, but it’s the best bet they have.

“Ladies first,” Riccardo grins at Ale and pushes him towards the railing. “My chances of surviving the fight up here are much better than yours, anyways.”

Ale is not about to argue – not when Riccardo’s the only reason he’s alive at this point, two times over – so he climbs over the railing and takes a firm hold of the rope, climbing down as fast as he can, his boots against the wall giving him just enough support as he slides down the side of the building. He silently thanks his stars for his childhood spent climbing old factory walls in District 5.

There’s no glass in the window, so it’s easy enough for Ale to swing himself through the frame – it appears another tribute had already used the power plant as their hideout, before the ensuing fight left the windows broken and walls bloodied.

There’s shouting outside, and Ale can just barely catch Riccardo yelling his name.

He only barely makes it back to the window, hanging half outside to see what’s happening up on the roof, when Riccardo comes hurtling down on the rope, only holding on by his hands, legs swinging freely in the air. Ale’s brain has no time to catch up with the situation, but he instinctively spreads his arms and catches Riccardo as he practically flies through the window, his momentum sending both of them tumbling down to the floor.

“Phew, that was close. Good catch!”

Riccardo’s eyes are wide and he’s grinning like a maniac, which is definitely not the face one would expect to see after a near-death experience – but then again, Ale has learned in their less than two days of acquaintance that Riccardo rarely reacts to anything like a normal fucking human being would.

“We better get outta here before they follow us,” Ale tries to be the voice of reason. It’s surprisingly difficult with Riccardo still lying on his chest, their faces only inches apart.

“Yeah, that.” Riccardo grimaces and tries to sit up with pitiful results. “I might need some help with that. Pretty sure there’s a knife sticking out of my leg.”

Allegri’s advice comes to him again: _“If someone’s hurt and will slow you down – leave them. There’s only one winner, and it should be you, not them.”_

“Fuck my life,” Ale mutters as he squirms his way out from under Riccardo weight. “Can you stand up? Do I need to carry you?” He crouches down with his back turned to Riccardo. “C’mon then, we don’t have time to waste.”

Riccardo is so light on his back – not for the first time Ale wonders how someone so skinny can have enough strength to snap anyone’s neck – his bloody hands wrapped around Ale’s neck in a fast hold. It’s been years Ale gave anyone a piggyback ride – it was probably his brother, back when neither of them was old enough for the Reaping.

For one single moment, Ale allows himself to miss his family – the family he will probably never get to see again, because it’s him against the three bloodthirsty Careers.

And Riccardo, who is feeling heavier with each step, his body sliding lower and his arms around Ale’s neck pressing against his windpipe, suffocating him.

“Don’t you dare to die on me,” Ale tells Riccardo who gives him no sign of understanding or even awareness. Shit, he’s probably losing lots of blood.

Ale finds them a hiding place in one of the large halls with lots of discarded machinery, nestled out of view behind two large barrels that he seriously hopes don’t hold nuclear waste or anything else poisonous.

Riccardo lets out a pained groan when Ale lowers him to the floor, the first sign he’s still conscious since they left the room with broken glass and dried blood on the walls.

The knife in Riccardo’s thigh is the same kind Riccardo carries on his belt – small and light, so it hopefully did not reach an artery. What’s more worrying is where else that knife has been: death by blood poisoning after being stabbed is probably not the way Riccardo wants to go.

Ale searches his bag for medical supplies one of his sponsors so kindly provided for him. There are no antiseptic medicines, but he finds dressings that he can use to slow down the blood flow before he removes the knife.

“Hold this, as tight as you can,” he advises Riccardo as he ties the dressing around his thigh, above the wound, tightening the loop the best he can. When he’s certain Riccardo’s hold is not faltering, he takes a hold of the knife and carefully pulls it out. To Riccardo’s credit, he makes no sound even though the pain must be unbearable.

He first presses a roll of gauze against the wound, applying pressure, and then he pulls out their last bottle of water.

“Don’t waste it, you need it more than I do,” Riccardo tells him in a weak voice, his eyes half-closed when Ale looks at him.

“I won’t need it if we end the Games _today_ ,” Ale counters and pulls the gauze carefully away, revealing the sluggishly bleeding wound. Good, not an artery then. He pours the water over the wound, ignoring all further protests, cleaning the cut to best of his ability.

Riccardo is studying Ale with curious eyes when he’s finished wrapping up the wound and moves on to wipe the blood from Riccardo’s palms – the skin is ripped and broken from sliding down the rope, but the wounds are not deep.

“You should’ve left me,” Riccardo tells him, in his flippant tone that Ale both loves and hates. “Would’ve been one opponent less for you.”

“And you should’ve gone down first and left me on that roof,” Ale retorts with a shrug, “but you didn’t. I’m starting to think your whole _Scary Career Tribute_ act is all made up.”

“You might be right. But don’t tell anyone else, okay?” Riccardo giggles, wholly out of character for him – the sound makes Ale’s heart skip a beat – which must be a sign he’s about to pass out.

“Thank you,” Ale whispers as Riccardo’s eyes fall shut, “for not dying on me.”

He leans in and brushes his lips against Riccardo’s before he can stop himself. Riccardo hums his agreement into the kiss, although afterwards Ale is left wondering if he even realized what was happening.

 

§§§

 

“What’re you doing?”

Riccardo’s voice snaps Ale out of his concentration. He turns to look at his companion, who is slowly coming to, blinking his eyes sluggishly and taking in his surroundings. He tries to move towards Ale to get a closer look at the device he is fiddling with, but he aborts the movement with a hiss of pain and a curse word muttered under his breath.

“It’s a bomb,” Ale replies when he’s certain Riccardo is not about to pass out again. “Figured, if we can’t beat them in close combat, and you don’t have your crossbow anymore, then our best bet is to blow them up as soon as they come snooping around here. Might even out the odds a bit.”

“Look at you; there might be more to you than just the pretty face, after all.” One corner of Riccardo’s mouth twitches in an attempted smirk, but his words fall flat with his exhausted tone. There’s no sign of his usual flippancy and Ale finds himself missing it.

“Well, I didn’t know if you’d make it. Your leg’s probably infected—,” Ale explains with a shrug, in what he intends to be casual tone, but his voice breaks at the end, leaving him sounding more scared than he would like to admit. “Three Careers against one me. Can’t keep running forever, right?”

“Two, actually.” Riccardo shifts closer to Ale, letting out a pained gasp when he moves his leg, but he doesn’t stop until they’re sitting side by side, so close Riccardo could rest his head on Ale’s shoulder if he so wished. “Pretty sure I got the whiny bitch from District 4 before I got stabbed.”

“Don’t speak ill of the dead. I’m sure she was only doing what she had to, just like you or me.”

“ _He_ was an insufferable prick who kept trying to recruit me to their sorry excuse of an alliance from day one in training.” Riccardo is unusually talkative for someone who refused to give Ale his name less than two days ago. Must be the fever talking. “Been looking forward to killing him since the Games begun.”

Ale clicks his tongue in disapproval and goes back to his makeshift bomb. It’s nothing fancy, built out of the old electronic devices Ale managed to scavenge from the hall where they are hiding. It should get the job done, though, at least if there’s any flammable substances left in the canisters around them.

“That looks like rubbish,” Riccardo comments dryly, “you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“District 5, remember?” Ale grins humourlessly and elbows Riccardo in a gesture he might deem overly friendly if they hadn’t already saved each other’s lives too many times to count. “We’re the tech-savvy bunch.”

“District 2 is the one with weapons manufacturers, but no one ever taught _me_ how to make a fucking bomb.” If Ale didn’t know any better, he might think Riccardo sounds impressed.

“We all have our strengths, I guess,” Ale finishes up his fiddling with the electrical cords. Now all he needs to do is cut the correct circuit to create a spark that in turn will set off the explosion. “You were taught to kill with your bare hands – I was supposed to become an engineer once I passed the age of Reaping.”

This would’ve been Ale’s last year, at 18 years of age.

“I’m sorry,” Riccardo whispers, so quiet Ale is left wondering if he heard him correctly.

“I just don’t get it,” Ale continues, meeting Riccardo’s blue eyes, as he asks the question that has been bothering him for years, “why would anyone do it? Volunteer for this, I mean. You’re almost 18, aren’t you? You could’ve just kept living your life instead of coming here. You could’ve been free.”

“You’re calling life in Panem free?” Riccardo counters, and it feels like his curious eyes are piercing through Ale’s skin. Then he sighs and leans his head on Ale’s shoulder, an oddly intimate gesture from him that makes breath catch in Ale’s throat. “The Capitol took something precious from me, years ago. And I can only get it back if I win.”

“What was it?”

What could be so important that Riccardo would be willing to risk his life for it?

“My first love.”

Riccardo’s whisper feels like a slap against Ale’s face, even though he knows he has no reason to be jealous. The only reason he feels so attached to Riccardo is because of the Games, the pressure and the co-dependency they have been forced into by the faulty system.

Ale tries to think about his girlfriend back home, her beautiful features and large brown eyes, but his mind keeps replacing her face with Riccardo’s – this is the only reality he has left, Riccardo is the only person that matters to him anymore.

There are footsteps outside in the corridor, their pursuers finally catching up with them. The food and water supplies are running dangerously low for everyone – Ale is probably the best off, with his sponsors’ contributions – which means the Careers are probably as desperate to end the Games quickly as Ale and Riccardo are.

“Can you stand?” Ale asks Riccardo as he gets up and offers his hand to help Riccardo up. “It’s now or never: we need to collect all flammable fluids we can find; the bomb won’t do much damage on its own.”

Riccardo grimaces when he rests his weight on his bad leg, but he stays upright. He’s probably running more on adrenaline by this point than anything else.

“Let’s fuck them up,” Riccardo offers with a crooked grin, the familiar flippant tilt back in his voice, almost like he’s singing the words. It makes Ale believe for the first time that they might actually pull this off.

 

§§§

 

Ale half-carries, half-drags Riccardo out of the abandoned power plant, tackling him down to the ground and covering his body with his own when there’s another explosion that leaves his ears ringing and makes the ground shake underneath them.

The material of his jacket has probably melted itself into his skin, and the burns hurt so much Ale wishes he could just pass out, so he wouldn’t have to bear the pain.

But the fires are spreading fast, and they are going to be burned alive if they don’t get away from them soon. The gamemakers are blasting the list of the Fallen to the sky – _and then there were two_ – but Ale doesn’t pay it any mind as he drags his body back into an upright position, and then hooks his hands under Riccardo’s arms to pull him up too.

“I thought you said your little bomb wasn’t going to do much damage,” Riccardo comments dryly as he leans most of his weight on Ale, one arm thrown around his shoulders, his hurt leg not holding him up any longer. There’s an angry red burn mark on the left side of his face and going down his neck, all the way to the burnt material of his jacket.

“Apparently fire safety wasn’t a top priority when designing the arena,” Ale mutters more to himself than to Riccardo, as he starts guiding him in the direction of the Cornucopia. There might be some supplies left there, now that there’s no one left to stop them from fetching them.

“Apparently not,” Riccardo hums absent-mindedly, obviously exhausted and in pain, but fortunately he seems fully conscious, so Ale is not left carrying him.

The reality is slowly catching up with Ale as they keep walking – limping – towards the Cornucopia. They are the only ones left. Ale never thought he would make it this far, so he never once stopped to consider how it is going to end.

The last two Career tributes perished in the explosions and fire set off by Ale’s bomb: they’re the only tributes whose deaths can directly be traced back to Ale, and Ale is not sure he likes the idea. He’s not a killer, not like the Careers chasing them — not like Riccardo.

“You should’ve left me there,” Riccardo quips after a while, obviously following a similar line of thought. They can just about see the shape of the Cornucopia in the distance, the golden hue falling flat under the grey skies – the acid rain is coming soon, and they must get to the shelter before it starts. Then they can talk.

They need to keep moving, but Riccardo is tightening his hold around Ale’s neck and digging the heel of his healthy leg into the ground, forcefully pulling him to a stop. “You should’ve let me die, Ale. There’s no way I would’ve made it out on my own. It would’ve been an easy victory for you; then you could’ve gone back home and become an engineer or some shit.”

“I’m not killing you!” Ale snaps back, turning in place so he is facing Riccardo. He grasps Riccardo’s face between his hands and forces him to look him in the eye. Riccardo hisses in pain when Ale’s fingers brush against the burnt skin on his face, but he makes no attempt to pull away. “We’re gonna figure something out. And then we’ll both get out of here.”

“Haven’t you watched any of the previous Games?” Riccardo asks, his voice gentle— far too gentle for the harsh words that are coming out of his mouth. Gone is the flippant, singing tone, replaced by something much deeper; sadness and regret mixed with something akin to affection. “We both know how this works. There’s no point fighting it.”

Ale presses his forehead against Riccardo’s and tries to fight back the tears that are stinging his eyes. He can feel Riccardo’s warm breath on his lips. He thinks back to the kiss that he stole in their hiding place, the one Riccardo probably cannot even remember because he was barely conscious at the time.

It’s the only kiss he can remember, the memory of his girlfriend nothing more than a ghost from a past life.

“Please, don’t say that,” Ale whispers, scared and desperate in the face of Riccardo’s terrifying calmness. “ _Please, Riccardo_.” He’s not even sure what he is asking for, but he is begging nonetheless.

Ale doesn’t want to die.

He doesn’t want to watch Riccardo die either. The mere thought of seeing the life draining out of those ice-blue eyes is breaking his heart. He cannot be the reason for it; he cannot bring himself to even consider the possibility.

“I’m so sorry,” Riccardo says, voice low and raspy in a way Ale has never heard him before, his lips only a breath away from Ale’s, “but you should’ve left me to die, Ale. That was the only way.”

A whimper escapes Ale’s lips when Riccardo closes the distance and kisses him. It’s just a chaste brush of lips on lips; Ale can taste the blood and sweat and grime on Riccardo’s lips, and the tears fall without his permission, because he _knows_ what’s going to happen next.

“Is it worth it?” Ale asks against Riccardo’s lips as they break the kiss. Riccardo’s hands are caressing the back of Ale’s neck, fingers combing through his matted hair. Ale’s hands are still holding Riccardo’s face, not letting him pull away. “Your first love— _is it worth all this_?”

“It’s all I have. It’s what keeps me going,” Riccardo replies, and then he brushes another kiss against Ale’s lips. His tongue flicks out to caress Ale’s bottom lip, and Ale pushes back to meet the tongue with his own. The sickening taste on Riccardo’s lips is now mixing with the salt of Ale’s tears, but still he’s reluctant to let go.

The first drops of rain are starting to fall, the acidic sting against Ale’s face nothing compared to the pain in the rest of his body – not to mention the ache in his heart, both for himself and for Riccardo.

“ _I forgive you_ , Riccardo,” Ale whispers against Riccardo’s lips. Riccardo’s hands are not stroking his hair anymore, his hold on his neck turning firmer, more determined. “I hope you’ll find him.”

The last thing Ale feels are Riccardo’s tears falling over his hands that are still caressing the burned cheeks.

Then there is a quick cracking sound followed by a soft thud as a body drops to the ground, but Ale is not there to hear it.


End file.
